There's a saying - "It is better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt." Regrettably, I've never been able to keep my mouth shut. I've just got to voice my opinion, and now, for those formerly fortunate enough to be out of earshot, my thoughts can travel through the ether to display screens far and wide.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Denis Kucinich may look as goofy as they come, but the fact that he's not a Robert Redford lookalike should not matter. This motion ought to be strongly supported by anybody that cares at all for the USA.

While I don't expect anything, I fervently hope this action receives the mainstream media coverage it deserves.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Tragically, it seems our country doesn't really care that the current cabal that has hijacked and horribly damaged the country didn't really win the 2004 election either. I've seen many, many articles detailing all of the evidence showing GWB couldn't have possibly won in 2004 (or 2000, for that matter), yet none ever seem to get mainstream press coverage. Hell, Rolling Stone had a few cover stories about this, and it still seems under the radar. I don't get it, but I'll do whatever I can to spread the word.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

1) LogMeIn-ITReach is an amazing product. I'm very, very tempted to purchase it and use it to support many of my freelance clients. Mom - if you're reading this, I'll probably try to use this to help with your printer problem.

2) I just solved a maddening problem involving Outlook Express 6. On this particular system, when trying to print a message from within OE6, the message would print out the HTML code that comprised the message, rather than the properly formatted message.

I found countless pages online telling me to disassociate .tmp from Notepad. These were all very old pages, and this solution was inapplicable to the involved system. I also came across many pages explaining how to solve the problem wherein OE6 doesn't print the headers to an email. Well, the headers were printing perfectly fine, thankyouverymuch.

I finally found a suggestion to reset Internet Explorer to the default web browser. I did that, and all of a sudden email messages printed with the proper formatting, and no longer included all of the HTML code in the printout. Unfortunately, the problem of the missing headers is now present. Fortunately, that problem is much more widely discussed online, there are a few workarounds, MS is aware of the problem, and has a hotfix available by request. I've requested it, and hopefully the new problem will be fixed once I receive the file from Microsoft.

Monday, April 16, 2007

When the song was popular in the late-70's, I liked it a lot, and was all for bombing Iran. Of course, I was only 10 or 11 years old, so I'm curious how more mature, intelligent folks felt about things.

Before the current embarrassing mess with Iraq began a few years ago, I was against starting a war with Iraq, but not entirely sure about that. I'm now very much against starting an additional war against Iran.

I see 2 likely reasons for my different feelings on the matter then, and now.

Back then, I was very young, uninformed, and easily swayed by jingoistic hype. There is a second, valid explanation, as well. Iran had actually done something directly aggressive to the United States, something that was provocative and deserving of retaliation. In contrast, Iraq hadn't provoked the US in 2003, and Iran hasn't attacked us yet in current times.

I wasn't intelligently aware of world affairs in the late-1970s, however, so I'm still wondering how mature and wise adults felt about things then. I suspect they would have been against military action. If anybody reading this was a "grown-up" then, care to share your memories?

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Long, long ago (mid-1980's), in a galaxy far, far away (friend's apartments, Baton Rouge, LA), I played the original 'The Legend Of Zelda' videogame on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). This game was enormously popular, and within the videogame playing universe the conventional wisdom held that Zelda was an excellent game. Ground-breaking, wonderful, entertaining, etc... Pick a superlative, and it's likely the word was applied to Zelda by somebody somewhere.

Well, I played the game, and whatever the appeal was, I missed it. I truly didn't "get" the game. It seemed to me that the game was nothing more than wandering around, and occasionally running into some minor on-screen opponent that you'd have to engage in combat, and the combat was far too easy.

According to the Zelda webpage linked to above, the game was released in 1987. I began playing videogames when Pong arrived, in the early-1970's. So for about 15 years I'd been playing videogames before encountering Zelda. In fairness, Zelda was substantially different in a lot of ways from most of the games that preceeded it. Well, I *liked* the games I'd been playing for over half my life, and I didn't really like Zelda.

The games I liked were fast-paced, hand-eye coordination challenges. I liked games like Spy Hunter, Xevious, Star Castle, Berzerk, Marble Madness, and Defender. All of the games I liked were adrenaline-pumping and heart-racing - Zelda was a leisurely stroll through various screens. I found it BORING.

I was mature enough to recognize that the game must surely have merit, but I just didn't understand or appreciate it myself. Curiously, I liked the Atari VCS game Adventure a lot, and the fundamentals of Zelda are similar to Adventure. (BTW, if you liked Adventure also, and if you have an Atari 5200, Adventure II is on the verge of release. Check it out here.)

Since that time, there have been many other Zelda games. (According to the Zelda website I referred to, there have been 14 additional Zelda games.) I never bothered to try any of them, and many have been highly praised and quite popular.

When the latest Zelda game arrived in December 2006 I read a lot of praise online about the game. I'd been thinking about picking it up to try it out, and debating whether I should get the Gamecube version, or wait and get the Wii version once I get a Wii.

Then, on March 30, I stopped at my friend Joe's store, Digital Press, for the latest NAVA meeting. While there, I purchased a copy of Zelda, The Wind Waker for my Gamecube. For the last couple of weeks Nate and I have been having a blast playing this game.

Sunday evening Nate got in trouble and the game was banned for this week, but until then we were plowing through the game and having a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to resuming play this Sunday.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

1)If Windows XP is installed to a PC running Windows Vista, and you are careful to install XP to a seperate, unused partition, so as to not damage Vista, then, upon completion, you can no longer boot Vista.** Vista No Longer Uses The Boot.ini File. ** The CORRECT way to do this is to install XP FIRST, then Vista.

SOLUTION to the problem, if you've already done the damage:a) Run a Vista repair install.b) In Vista, download and install a program called EasyBCD (currently v1.52)c) Use EasyBCD to add a boot entry for Windows XP, allowing you to repair the XP boot option that was removed when Vista was repaired.

2) Lexmark Optra S1250, or other Optra S-series printer giving error 241 paper jams? The problem is most likely caused by worn pick-up rollers on the bottom of the printer, positioned over the paper tray. When the rollers get worn, they no longer are able to pick the paper up from the tray. Rather than trying to find and order replacement rollers, and then wait for the rollers to arrive, you can fix the problem yourself in about 2 minutes:a) remove the paper tray and toner cartridge, then turn the printer on it's side so you can easily see the bottom.b) visually locate the rollers - there are 2, and they look like off-white rubber cylinders, about 1.5 inches long.c) Pull the rollers off the metal spindle they are on.d) Turn the rollers inside-out.e) Replace them on the spindles, place the printer back right-side-up, replace the toner and paper-tray, and congratulate yourself on saving the printer service fee.